EDITORIAL: We Are All Complicit in Schools Budget Crisis
It's an uncomfortable fact: we are all complicit in the budget crisis at Groton-Dunstable Regional School District. In order to find a durable solution to the budget shortfall we need to do two things: one, take a careful look at costs, and cut where reasonable, and two, understand and accept the town's part in bringing about this crisis.
The fact that the school budget has been nearly flat-funded for the last few years, while the town budget continues to grow, suggests a difference in concern and loyalties on the part of we the people as well as town officials. The actions of Town Meeting, Town Manager, Board of Selectmen, and the Finance Committee sometimes suggest that too many see the public schools as somehow separate - not really part of the town's 'core' mission; a financial obligation needing to be brought under cost control; a drag, even, on the costs of direct town services such as police and fire and other elements of the municipal budget.
Sadly, these attitudes and actions were on full display at last year's town meeting debate on approval of the new fire station, a debate focused not on the merits of building the station, but mostly on the schools' competing claims for funding.
The School Committee wanted to preserve additional funding for the schools by separating the debt for building the fire station from the general operating budget, a technique called debt exclusion, a common financial technique that has been used to construct every other large public building in town. This would provide budget flexibility for possible school needs. The School Committee begged town meeting to reserve sufficient taxing capacity to meet likely but not-yet-defined funding needs to address possible shortfalls after several years of flat funding the schools.
Selectmen and the Town Manager insisted there was sufficient taxing capacity for the schools while also funding fire station construction. They unanimously rejected the School Committee's pleadings out of hand, assured voters of sufficient funding, and encouraged voters to approve the fire station without using a debt exclusion. Town Meeting agreed. If the Board of Selectmen and town had followed the course advocated by the School Committee we would not be in the unfortunate position we are in today, pondering the need for either severe cuts in school programs and personnel, or the possibility of asking the town to approve a general override.
The town and the schools need to establish a more cooperative working relationship. The schools are entirely beholden to the town because the town provides most funding for the schools--directly, through Town Meeting vote. But most importantly, the process for establishing priorities for expending all of the town's income in the budget upon which we vote at Town Meeting is established by the Town Manager and the Board of Selectmen. This system creates pressure on the schools to accept less than needed and for the town to apply pressure to accept less than desired. When this form of pressure is successfully applied over a period of years, there is an inevitable cascade to a place where the schools are not sufficiently funded, and this is the situation we are in now.
If selectmen are truly serious about solving the school budget problems for the long-term they need to recognize their part in this budget process and in the current crisis, and develop a new working relationship of trust and equality with the schools. This can be achieved by not dumping the whole burden of cost cutting and pain on the school district.
To show their seriousness of purpose and commitment to solving the problem, Selectmen should volunteer to take a close look at their own budget - the town's municipal budget - for cost savings, and show willingness to share some of the pain with the schools. Such an initiative would go a long way toward breaking down barriers of suspicion, creating a recognition that this is not a time to score political points but to solve serious community problems.
